The Gaymazing Race

Release Date: 12/01/2023

Things get tense as the final 5 teams on The Amazing Race winnow down to 4 in Sweden’s Stockholm archipelago. Everyone skydives their way to Nordic bliss before the slimmest of margins separate all the teams.

This week’s detour is decidedly a choice between a lesbian task–recycling–and a gay task: expediting a gourmet French menu. Nicole makes a case for reimagining team Beardback Mountain as “pansexual,” while Karen bonds with our elimination station guests, Todd and Ashlie who are also from the I.E. (Inland Empire)

Release Date: 11/30/2023

After a long prelude in which Nicole and Karen discuss the new Todd Haynes film, May December, with some notes on which Amazing Race contestants they would cast in the lead roles, they get into how painfully straight the show has become. Slovenia feels very “Covid lockdown” season to our team, despite all the hype. Karen talks a little too much about caves, and Nicole thinks the greeters at the end of this leg are lesbian nuns. We are of course devastated that our brash fanfiction team is KNOCKED OUT (farewell Robbin and Chelsea), and we wonder if there’s any gaymazing hope left as we near the finish line.

Release Date: 11/17/2023

The Amazing Race visits Llubjana, Slovenia for the first time ever in its history, and Karen tells us about how Llubjana became a gaycation destination in the late aughts and early-2010s. Nicole softens to Steve, the daddy of team Daddy/Daughter dance, especially after Anna Leigh makes him run up a long ski lift for an express pass that was already claimed.

Despite the gayness of Llubjana, we were hard-pressed to find gaymazing content beyond the detour where the judges of both sides offered the slightest glimmer of queer potential. Morgan and Lena join us in the elimination station after a photo finish at the Dragon Bridge pit stop, and we get into the sad, contested history of cast members who were also gay, but had some other aspect of their “difference” determine their storyline.

Release Date: 11/10/2023

The Amazing Racers take a 15 hour flight from Jaipur to Frankfurt where the season’s first self-driving leg awaits them. As they make their way along the Rhine, we find out who can’t find the right ferry. Are all the teams secretly laughing at the German word “Fährt”?

Karen declares she would “slay in Köln,” one of her favorite cities in the world, and a place she knows well. Nicole feels like the wayward teams have captured her true TAR spirit. Plus, experience the Kölner carnival challenge that makes EVERYONE a little bit gay.

Release Date: 11/06/2023

Release Date: 10/27/2023

Release Date: 10/20/2023

Kat Spada of Feminist Frequency Radio guest-hosts as Nicole takes the week off for a silent meditation retreat (gaymazing!). Kat comes in hot with new team nicknames like “ZZ and/or Top” (referring of course to team Beardback Mountain), as we give a thorough account of the mega part of the teams’ second leg through Vietnam.

The matching challenge at the Hung King Temple broke our hearts, especially because it meant Jocelyn and Victor were waiting for us in the elimination station. Plus, some chatter up top about what it means to watch The Amazing Race with a “queer gaze.”

Release Date: 10/13/2023

Nicole and Karen ‘s powers of projection are more powerful than ever as they comb through the details of TAR’s leg 3 in Vietnam for the subtlest of queer content. How are our fanfic Gaymazing teams (the tatted-up GenX moms, and “Beardback Mountain”) faring against the ACTUAL gays competing this season, Joe and Ian? How hot does it get in the vinyl challenge? And who can roll the rice right to slide into the pit-stop first? This, and disturbing new sound effects on this week’s TGR!

Release Date: 10/09/2023

Nicole and Karen are back to give you all their spicy, gaymazing commentary on not one, but the first TWO episodes of season 35 of The Amazing Race. What teams have each of them cathected onto for their gay fan-fiction? Who are their favorites otherwise? Is this season’s gay team evil enough? Plus interviews with the eliminated contestants.

Release Date: 02/28/2022

Could leg 9 of season 33 be the gayest episode of The Amazing Race yet? Nicole and Karen have such rich Hellenistic content to explore, from all the Thespians featured throughout this leg in Thessalonaki to the Oracle of Delphi giving us endurance-oriented experimental theater vibes. Through it all, Cayla offers Raquel a back massage, Ryan won’t do the same for Dusty, and at least 3 cats show up, along with a dog who races to the pit stop with a trailing team.

Release Date: 02/21/2022

In this food-centric leg 8 of The Amazing Race, we witness more kitchen hubris from the guys, ladies climbing ladderless, some dumpster diving, and add to our TGR Dogs & Cats tally. Plus, Lulu and Lala join us for an elmination station interview to talk about their touching goodbyes to Phil and give the inside scoop on some…digestive realities of the race.

Release Date: 02/15/2022

Today Nicole is joined by noted Amazing Race superfan Poulomi Saha to discuss Amazing Race 33 Episode 7 (Gently Down the Stream) , while our faithful host and executive producer Karen Tongson recuperates from Covid.

We watch the teams try Casu Marzu in Corsica, count metal fish together under the water, fake-almost-drown thanks to editing, and MORE. Tune in!

Poulomi Saha (@poulomiqsaha) is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, where she teaches courses in postcolonial studies, gender and sexuality theory, and ethnic American literature. She is also the author of the award-winning book, An Empire of Touch: Women’s Political Labor & The Fabrication of East Bengal.

Release Date: 02/07/2022

Leg 6 of The Amazing Race is not for the lactose intolerant, as our contestants take cheesin’ to a whole other level. We get a clear picture of which teams know how to manipulate strips of leather and metal loops round an ass to properly strap on giant metal milk containers. Is sisterhood powerful? Or is it all lip service between the all girl teams whose actions don’t always match their feminist rhetoric? Plus, Akbar and Sheri join us in our very own elimination station to process how they went from masterful fromage making, to spelunking into last place.

Release Date: 01/31/2022

Nicole and Karen experience actual physical distress when they see this week’s Amazing Race Road Block: the second highest bungee jump in the world. Would our resident vegan Nicole be able to stomach the sausage-making challenge that Karen thought was a “no-brainer” choice at the Detour? And which of the teams visits our elimination station?!? Plus, find out more about the three teams who couldn’t return to the race when it resumed in September 2021.

Release Date: 01/24/2022

Nicole and Karen rejoin the race as it resumes in St. Gallen Switzerland after a 19 month suspension. The contestants confront dizzying Alpine heights, some fast-moving clouds that Sils Maria would be proud of, and a leather challenge that our hosts feel confident they could master. PLUS: Starting this week, Nicole and Karen will be welcoming TAR 33’s eliminated teams for a special exit segment! Tune in as we chat w/ Michael and Moe about karaoke, the race’s Covid protocols, and their experiences at “elimination station.”

Release Date: 01/18/2022

Nicole & Karen recap S33 EP3 in Glasgow, Scotland: what they’re calling the last “pre-pan” or “pre-lapserian” episode of The Amazing Race before production was halted on 2/28/2020. How do our hosts feel about the “if it ain’t Scottish, it’s crrrrraaap” aspects of this leg, which features contestants donning kilts, fondling bagpipes and risking tetanus to refurbish whiskey barrels? The hosts also apply their gaymazing lens to some of the robust masculinity on display throughout the episode, while giving an honest assessment of gaymazing team Isaiah and Taylor’s Scottish folk singing. Plus a close read of the Ep. 4 trailer, and behind the scenes scoop on TAR’s Covid “plan B,” with a rundown of all the legs of the race once production resumed.

Release Date: 01/13/2022

Nicole and Karen reunite to recap the long-awaited 33rd season of The Amazing Race, which began filming in early 2020 before…(well, you know), and didn’t resume until 18 months later. We’ll introduce you to all 11 teams and who we’re currently vibing with. What changes in the first two episodes of S33 (filmed in London), already seemed Covid-aware? Or were they merely refreshing the format? Plus, some info on the modifications made once TAR resumed production in fall 2021.

Release Date: 02/26/2021

On the heels of our last episode which touched upon the lack of lesbian representation on The Amazing Race, Nicole and Karen take matters into their own hands to form a lesbian TAR fantasy league. We invite authors, scholars, and queer BFFs Poulomi Saha & Greta LaFleur to talk about what would make them a great Amazing Race team. We hear about how Poulomi groomed an unwitting Greta to be a TAR teammate by posing challenges in their everyday lives. Which one of the two actually submitted a TAR audition tape in the early 2000s? And whose student competed in S32? Collectively we think out loud about why only lesbian couples and no lesbian buddy teams have ever been tapped to run the race.

Release Date: 02/12/2021

Karen and Nicole spend some quality time with the first ever lesbian couple and team to compete on The Amazing Race, the “married ministers,” Kate and Pat. Though their run on the race lasted only a couple of legs, they also had some spirited drama on the web series Elimination Station. Which of the two earned a lifetime supply of Hooters?! You’ll also find out which of them was fired from their job after appearing as an out lesbian on TV for “peddling the gay agenda,” and learn about their spiritual and activist journeys both before and after the race. Together, we reflect on the lesbian story arcs available on reality TV, and in reality/lesbian culture itself. Plus, we get into the pitfalls of some THOUGHTS on the Poker Players from season 15 and much much more.

Release Date: 02/05/2021

One of the most lovable and legendary LGBTQ competitors ever to have graced the Amazing Race mat, Oswald Mendez of “Team Cha Cha Cha” (Oswald & Danny, S2/S11) join Karen and Nicole for a scintillating chat about all things gaymazing. Find out about how watching Pedro Zamora influenced Oswald’s sense of self before his own entry into reality TV as a gay Cuban. On which leg did Oswald & Danny take a break from the race for some drinks and dancing w/ the local gays? What TAR rules had to be written or modified because of Oswald and Danny’s innovations to the game? Plus, this week’s road block segment revisits Team T&T’s slippery situation in Malta in S25, while Nicole and Karen detour into a post-mortem of the “Mine 5” alliance on S32.

Release Date: 01/29/2021

Nicole and Karen welcome Bill Bartek and Joe Baldassare, aka “Team Guido,” the very first gay team to compete on Season 1 of The Amazing Race, and the first gay couple to appear as series regulars on network reality TV. In a revealing and candid interview, Bill and Joe help Karen and Nicole break down the recurring trope of “the gay villain”–a reality competition stereotype they were shoehorned into after their first appearance on TAR–by going behind the scenes of not only the show, but also their relationship. Plus, our “Road Block” revisits Mika vs. the Leap of Faith waterslide in Dubai, and we detour into the infamous Kafka challenge in Prague.

Release Date: 01/14/2021

Authors, professors, and professional queers, Nicole J. Georges and Karen Tongson introduce you to their new limited podcast series on The Amazing Race from an LGBTQ point-of-view. What makes the race so “gaymazing” beyond some of the storied LGBTQ teams who have competed, and in some instances even won, the race? How does TAR touch upon a queer aptitude for travel, adventure, cracking codes, and reading signs? How has the show grappled with the thorny issue of “diversity” in TV representation?  Our hosts introduce you to some of the themes and recurring segments you’ll be hearing all series long while introducing newbies to The Amazing Race fundamentals. Plus, Nicole and Karen do a deep dive into some of their problematic TAR favorites, including Mirna and Charla.